Monitor Duty
by Lomiel
Summary: Quite possibly the most horrific punishment—well, one of the most horrific, and he'd been through a lot—was to expect the Fastest Man Alive, with his super-speed and endless energy, to sit in one place for hours and stare at a bunch of empty screens...


Thoughts: Written as an off-shoot of the animated _Justice League_ series, specifically placed directly after the Thanagarian invasion at the end of Season 2. This is my own interpretation…just a one-shot, speculative piece.

~*~

Monitor duty.

The Flash sighed gustily into the empty chambers of the silent, newly-replaced Watchtower. Quite possibly the most horrific punishment—well, one of the most horrific, and he'd been through a lot—was to expect the Fastest Man Alive, with his super-speed and endless energy, to sit in one place for hours and stare at a bunch of empty screens. How—and, for that matter, _why_—Batman could volunteer for and even _want_ this sort of torture was beyond Wally's comprehension. He would've gladly given it over when Batman suggested it, if not for Superman stepping in and insisting that everyone had to take their turn on the screens—and Flash had been ducking out of it for months, mostly dumping it on Batman. Flash doubted Superman had seen it—although you could never be too confident about that sort of thing with Supes—but the look on Batman's face at the very nerve of Superman to suggest that Flash had somehow _duped_ him into taking monitor duty was almost worth the agony itself.

But not quite.

Thankfully, he wasn't the Fastest Man Alive for nothing, despite what anyone else said. And as such, he had ways to keep himself entertained.

His record time to run the whole Watchtower was just short of a second, and he was intending to cut that down to half a second if he could help it. But first—

It only took a few seconds to whip up a couple iced mochas to charge up before the runs. Flash returned to the control seat—noting with his usual dismay that the friction had partially melted the ice—and flopped with deliberate languidness into the cushy command chair with a sigh to enjoy the chocolaty goodness.

Being the Fastest Man Alive was not without its perks, but neither was it free of downsides, and his ridiculously high metabolism was one of them. Another, Flash mused absently, was his inability to think through and process complex ideas or concepts when on the job. When you're the Fastest Man Alive, you don't have time to consider all the ramifications of moral conundrums or the intricate politics both within and involving the League; you're too concerned about avoiding obstacles like buildings, pedestrians, and the occasional invading meta-alien. Flash had become accustomed to simply ignoring these complex problems, pushing them below the surface into his unconscious for days or weeks at a time until he had the breathing room to properly think them through. More than once, he had shoved a puzzling case under in just such a manner only to have it resurface already solved by his subconscious mind.

These past few weeks, he hadn't been so lucky. The aftermath of the Thanagarian invasion was barely beginning to heal, and everyone in the League was exhausted with trying to balance shifts for helping the affected areas, diplomacy with governments around the world, maintaining faith in the League after one of their own betrayed them, and occasionally taking a moment to eat or sleep for periods measured only in minutes. Any difficult or baffling issues had been necessarily demoted in favor of simply avoiding stepping on anyone's toes—both literally and figuratively—and staying awake enough to still be helpful.

This one issue, though, kept popping to the surface at the most inconvenient moments and then mockingly eluding his grasp, like an errant apple that kept bobbing up but that he couldn't quite manage to sink his teeth into. In that moment of cornered fear, when the six of them were being hunted by legions of winged aliens, betrayed and alone, forced to unmask, the revelation of Wally's secret identity and those of his colleagues had been laughably unimportant, and at the time he had simply, by force of habit and necessity, forced it to the back of his mind. Now it was bothering him. Again.

In fact, it was driving him crazy.

Forgetting for a moment his intention to set a new Watchtower speed record, Flash set aside his mocha—knowing that either J'Onn, or Batman, or both, would be out for his head for putting the dripping drink on their precious machinery—and scootched up to the keyboard. He sent a superstitious glance over his shoulder before he caught himself doing it, and surreptitiously called up the Watchtower's vast archive files.

SEARCH QUERY: Wayne, Bruce.

As a matter of necessity, the Watchtower had archives containing just about every news story ever written, published, aired, broadcast, or scribbled on a napkin. In this case, though, Flash hardly had to dig deep; Bruce Wayne was quite a public figure. As he expected, a mammoth list of all the articles, blurbs, and stories even mentioning the heir to the Wayne fortune and prince of Gotham City scrolled up on the main screen before him. Flash selected the first one.

A second screen opened, a recent news story no more than a month or so old—just a little before the onset of the invasion. The video showed an elaborately decorated stage, graced by the Mayor of Gotham City, various important people, dignitaries and bigwigs, and one Mr. Bruce Wayne, his arm around the waist of an anonymous woman who must have been a supermodel. The reporter's voice droned in the background—something about another enormous charitable contribution, opening of a new museum or playground or some other thing—until Flash muted it. "Freeze frame," he announced to the air, and the computer complied. With a few clicks, Flash zoomed in on Bruce Wayne and studied him carefully.

He was a handsome man, perhaps a little too muscled for a philanderer and playboy, but the bulk was well-hidden beneath his finely tailored and ridiculously expensive suit. His thick black hair was perfectly styled, his teeth perfectly white and set into the perfect mixture of amused benevolence and bored arrogance. Everything about him—gorgeous hand-crafted watch, imported tie, supermodel companion—just screamed decadence, endless money with no outlet but the owner's wandering pleasure. Flash leaned in, frowning. Even his eyes—bright, piercing blue—showed no particular signs of intelligence or wisdom beyond conniving, selfish business sense and politics. The act was, like Bruce Wayne himself, absolutely perfect.

Bruce Wayne's face was known to everyone; Flash had seen him before on the news and given it little thought. Now, it had a whole different meaning. Flash tried for a moment to image this same man wearing a Kevlar body suit chock-full of sophisticated weaponry, tried to imagine the black cowl hooding those vacant blue eyes. It was too great a leap. Even having gone to Wayne Manor and seen the Batcave underneath, his mind simply couldn't reconcile the smirking, smarmy playboy on the screen with the terrifyingly intelligent dark phantom with inhuman white eyes who could cow the world's greatest leaders and most merciless criminals with his mere presence.

"Not possible," Flash muttered, slumping back in his chair.

"That's the idea."

Flash jumped at the sound of the harsh voice directly behind him and whirled. Batman stood just behind him, unperturbed as usual by Flash's reaction. The white slits in his cowl gave no indication of the direction of his gaze, but Flash knew he was observing the image—his _own_ image, Flash made himself think with difficulty—on the screen sheerly because Flash wasn't sweating under the weight of that stare. He took the opportunity to study Batman again—a towering figure radiating terror and merciless justice, wreathed in a black cape that pooled around him like liquid shadow. Flash's eyes flickered to the emptily grinning face on the monitor again.

Nope, no way.

Batman was showing no sign of breaking the silence, so Flash decided it was up to him. He cleared his throat peremptorily. "So…how long had you known about my…about me?"

"Ever since it became important to know," Batman replied cryptically. "I don't like loose ends."

"How'd you find out?"

"Nervous?" Batman shot back, his voice tinged with irony although no emotion showed on his face.

"Nah." Flash slouched back in his seat. "Just wondering, that's all. You know, to better protect my identity."

"It's not about making sure there's no way for your enemies to find out," Batman said after a long pause. "It's about anticipating how your enemy will think, and making it impossible for them to logically make the connection."

Flash blinked. A few times, rapidly. That was quite a speech from the taciturn Bat.

Batman sighed, very softly. "Anyone open to the possibilities could make the connection." His voice dipped down to a murmur, as if he were pondering to himself. "Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true."

Flash hazarded a guess. "Ghandi?"

Now Batman looked at him, white eyes piercing despite their unsettling blankness. "Demonsthenes."

"Ah," Flash articulated indistinctly. He hesitated for a second—but not long; the Fastest Man Alive never had time to hesitate—but still unable to really believe Batman was Bruce Wayne until he saw it in daylight with his own eyes, ventured, "Do you think you could, maybe, you know…take off--"

"No," Batman said, with the undertones of warning that he used during interrogation right before he informed the unlucky criminal in question which finger he was going to break first.

Flash said, "Okay," and dropped it.

Batman reached over suddenly and plucked the iced mocha from where it was dripping condensed water onto the console. Flash shrugged somewhat apologetically at Batman's accusing look and sipped out of the other mocha contentedly, leaning back in his chair to prop his gold-booted feet on a button-free part of the control panel. The frozen image of Wayne's smug face was still smiling down at him from the screen, and Flash couldn't help but grin back. How cool was this, that he knew Bruce Wayne? "Hey Bats, I've been needing a new microwave…think you can hook me up?"

"Don't even think about it," Batman's voice said out of the commlink right under Flash's feet. Flash leapt up, but the Dark Knight was gone and he was alone at the monitor.

"Man…I hate it when he does that," Flash muttered, finished his mocha with a slurp, and got ready to run.


End file.
